The Marriage Swap

17 | 𝚁𝚞𝚗

I wonder sometimes, would a thing already messed could become worse?

Would a fruit already rotten,
dissapear into dust?

Would a person already hurt....
experience betrayals more corrupt.

~ from Axel's notes

--------᪥-------

☘︎ Axᴇʟ Hᴇʀɴᴀɴᴅᴇᴢ ☘︎

Impulse.

It is something one should never act on.

But more often than not, we find ourselves doing the irrational. Acting without a thought, without a consideration. Becoming a willing fool.

I found myself doing just that; letting Eve rest on me the other night, holding her close until she awoke. Getting into the pool, touching her, feeling the softness of her skin under my fingertips, just because I couldn't stop myself from being enchanted by the spell she cast.

She was like poetry embodied into a woman; the dusky tone of her skin blending with the aquamarine of the pool waves, the sun peeking between the mountain-tops forging a halo behind her form, the little droplets of water creating a path down her cheekbones, sliding over with a silken pattern from her neck to the valley of her cleavage before disappearing in the water she was immersed in.

I'd never thought myself to be envious of those water droplets trailing down her body, never thought my hands would itch to trace the pattern they created. Then she'd thrown back her head, exposing the column of her throat and her laugh was akin to the gentle hum of a bird in early morning. So peaceful, it bought a smile to your face. Her entire presence affected me in that moment in a way I wasn't really sure I objected, in a way that made me want to do impulsive things.

Just the way I felt during the. . .gunshot.

It happened in an event of sudden notice. I could feel my lips curving into an amused smile at the handicraft bracelets, I could sense the strange warmth encapsulate my heart in its lilting muse and then I saw the red beam of laser light pointed right at her throat. There was none on Tori when I'd taken a quick, alert glance. But there was one on her.

I didn't think, I didn't stop to wonder why everything in my being had stilled with terror, why I even cared. I'd simply acted. I'd simply lunged.

The runaway was on the ground in a matter of seconds, my arms holding her down, pinning her wrists to the floor and my body shielding hers. People were screaming and scrambling around in the market, stalls held by cloth fell amidst the chaos.

My eyes watched Eve's face; her sharp breaths and furrowed brows, the mess of her hair falling into her mouth.

But then her face was blurring in my vision. A dizziness I didn't understand was taking over my nerves, a feverish heat elgulfing my body. I tried to hold up, tried to keep covering her in case there were to be more gunshots, but there was something. . .wrong.

I see the runaway's brown eyes widen in my hazy sight and there are emotions I've never seen on her face before; shock, horror and panic. Then her eyes glaze over and all those emotions dissipate until her face is a sheet of white mask-as if she's thinking of something else, as if she's not here, as if she's teleported to another place on another day with a similar situation.

I don't understand why I want to ask her what it is she is reminiscing, I don't understand why I want to know if it was terrible, I don't understand why I want to tell her that sometimes this happens to me too. That I too get transported to a memory I do not wish to recall. . .